With a dreadful oath she sprang forward. The affrighted woman retreated before her, but old Haidee was too quick for her. In a moment her strong, claw-like fingers were fastened about the fair neck of the beautiful woman. In another moment her sinful soul would have been sent forth to its dread account with Heaven; but before that critical instant arrived, the old witch fell backward on the hard floor, writhing in the agonies that had destroyed her husband.
The widow stepped a few paces back out of reach of her victim, and stood regarding her with a smile of wicked triumph, while the witch, amid her dying groans, hurled the most awful maledictions upon her destroyer.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Vance, enjoying her revenge to the utmost limit; "did you think you could play with fire and not be burned? Did you think I would destroy a beautiful and valued life like that of Lily Lawrence, yet suffer two worn-out old hulks to stand between me and my cherished purpose? Ha, ha! you realize your folly, now!"
Her words fell on deaf ears. Old Haidee had expired in horrible agonies, while the jeers and taunts of her destroyer yet echoed in her hearing. She lay inside the door-way where she had fallen, a hideous spectacle of death.
Mrs. Vance lifted her foot and spurned the still body with all the intensity of the hate that burned in her heart.
"They are both dead," she said, aloud. "My evil genius has helped me. I am safe now."
She stepped across old Haidee's body with a slight thrill of repulsion, and entering the room, picked up her purse and began to collect the scattered gold coins.
"I may as well have my money again," she thought to herself. "I need not be in a hurry to get away. No one ever comes here, I am sure."
She placed the last coin in the purse and paused to look around her. Old Peter's ghastly dead face met her view. The wicked eyes, wide open and staring, seemed to threaten her as in life. A shiver of deadly fear thrilled along her veins, seeming to freeze them.
"Great God!" she exclaimed. "What if my sins should find me out!"